


fourteen towers, one way out

by TheAndromedaRecord



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 160 alternate ending but still sad, Body Horror, Eye Gouging, Eye Trauma, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Apocalypse, Not Canon Compliant, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, but at what cost, but like for a good cause, but with way more hurt than comfort, jon escapes the beholding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 16:49:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21305348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAndromedaRecord/pseuds/TheAndromedaRecord
Summary: The path to escaping the Beholding is a drastic one, but it's between that and causing the apocalypse. Jon chooses the lesser of two evils.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 20
Kudos: 283
Collections: TMA Escaping Beholding Via Eye Trauma Fics





	fourteen towers, one way out

**Author's Note:**

> hi
> 
> sorry about this

He is reading, and he can’t stop.

Whatever this is, it is bad. That is what he knows. That is all he knows, and he does not know it because of the Beholding. The Beholding has left him, it isn’t telling him anything, and it’s only now that he realizes how much he was depending on that damned eye. It’s against him now, and all he knows is that he has to stop.

But he can’t.

He shuts his mouth and stops speaking for a moment, but the words are torn nonetheless from his protesting throat and his jaw is moved up and down against his will like a nutcracker. His hand clutches at his mouth. He tries to pry his fingers from the statement, maybe tear it to pieces, but his hand just skitters uselessly around the paper like a spider on ice. He claws at his mouth, scratches at his throat until blood starts to trickle over his neck. He tries to shove himself off the chair, but a numb paralysis is starting to settle over his body, and all he accomplishes is splinters driven into his fingers. 

Jon knows what he’s reading, but only because he hears it. He hears his own voice, twisted and wrong, reading a prescription for his fate. But it isn’t him. Jonah Magnus has hijacked his throat and taken his voice.

Jon tries to slam his head into the table, but he cannot tear his eyes away from the statement. The Beholding finally gives him a flash of knowing, and it pierces him like a bolt of lightning.

The world ends here.

The next sentence comes strangled from Jon’s throat, tearing at his vocal cords. He claws at his face, his fingers inching centimeter by centimeter towards his eyes.

He thinks of Martin, of Basira, of all the people he loved and let down. They deserved better. They deserved better than a world of ash and terror. Martin deserves better than a monster made of statements and scars.

Jon sobs, but even his tears do not stop his words. They sting in the ragged cuts drawn by his fingernails.

He tries to scream Martin’s name. Martin is far out of earshot, of course, but he’s the only person Jon has left to cry out for. Magnus will not allow him this comfort, of course. Jon’s voice is no longer his own.

Perhaps it never was.

His legs begin to shake from the exertion of trying to resist. _Why not just give in?_ an insidious voice in his head suggests. _It’s no use anyway. You may as well be happy with the world you’re going to create. You will have a place in it, after all._

He kicks the leg of the table weakly, barely enough to stub his toe. His fingernails dig into his cheek and tear into his skin. It burns, burns so terribly, but Jon is used to pain by now. His fingers work their way up his face like a climber ascending a cliff, using the rips they open in Jon’s skin as holds.

He tries, again, to call for Martin. He doesn’t know if he’ll survive this. It’s selfish, but he wants to see Martin again. He wants to hear Martin’s voice say it’s going to be okay. 

His pointer finger scrabbles against the lower lid of Jon’s left eye as his mouth begins to chant.

He remembers Martin’s hand, warm against his even in the middle of the Lonely. Martin’s smile. His hands cupped around a warm mug of tea. 

Martin is good, and Martin deserves so much better. Martin deserves a world that is whole. 

“I—OPEN—THE—“

In one agonizingly slow motion, Jon drives his pointer finger into his left eye. He screams, and he cannot tell if the voice is his or that of Jonah Magnus, because both of them are in searing pain. He twists his finger and jams it in further, and his vision is red and white and burning.

His finger is wet. His face is wet. His remaining eye is crying so hard he can’t see. This makes the worms seem like a toothache. 

The Beholding’s grip starts to loosen in shock, but he is still its puppet. Through the scream, his lips spasm, trying to form the last word to let the fears through. 

He doesn’t let them. With a quick movement—quick enough that he doesn’t lose his nerve—he feels his thumb wrap around his right eye, and then it’s pain and blackness. Pain. Pain. Pain. The sensation is so intense that it is all the world is made of. All the world is agony. All the world is agony and blackness.

He falls off the chair. His hands are smeared in blood and eyeball, but they are his hands. He screams, and it is his voice. He is dizzy, and he cannot tell which way is up. 

_I did it._ Jon starts laughing. He wants to cry, but of course he cannot—his eyes are gone. He is delirious, he dimly realizes, but the realization holds no real weight. He can’t feel the carpet. He puts a hand up to his face and feels only pain. 

He is not the Archivist. He is not the Archive. He is Jonathan Sims, broken and blinded and unable to cry.

He bangs his head against the floor and screams, because screaming seems like the only thing to do. Something slams, like a gunshot.

“Jon! Jon, oh my god, are you okay? What happened?”

Jon tries to say Martin’s name, but he is in too much pain to form words. He senses Martin kneel down next to him and his flailing hands reach out for something, anything. Martin catches his arms, and he hears Martin’s breath hitch. 

“Jon, hang on. Hang on, please, just hang on for me, I’m going to get help.”

“I…” Jon tries to choke out an explanation, but his words deteriorate into dry sobs. 

He hears Martin call 999. The panic in Martin’s voice stabs him in the chest and twists the knife. All through the call, Martin’s hand is on his shoulder, cautious and trembling.

Jon dimly realizes that there was no backlash from separating from the Watcher. He was the Archive, yet he survived. He is simply human.

“Simply human,” he whispers, then dissolves into a fit of giggles. 

There is blood on his face, so much of it. Something—a towel—presses against his empty, yawning eye sockets. Applying pressure. They took a first aid class at the Institute once, though why Elias would care about making sure his employees—puppets—knew first aid was anyone’s guess…

“Jon. Jon! Stay with me. Please, stay with me, the ambulance is on its way.”

Martin’s voice is water in a desert. It always has been. The simple intimacy of caring. Jon finds Martin’s hand and grasps it with all his strength. It isn’t much strength. Martin’s hands, after everything, are soft. There’s a bit of hair on his knuckles. Jon could spend a lifetime memorizing how Martin’s hands feel. 

“I will stay with you,” Jon whispers. “Stay with you forever…”

“I meant stay conscious, Jon. It’s going to be okay, it’s all going to be okay.”

Jon doesn’t need the Beholding to know that Martin is not reassuring Jon but himself.


End file.
